ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE IPA

Belgian Standard Dutch

Jo Verhoeven
Department of Linguistics
University of Antwerp
jo.verhoeven@ua.ac.be

Dutch is a language spoken by about 20 million people in the Netherlands and Belgium.
This region is not only characterised by a complex dialect situation, but also by the use of
two institutionalised varieties of the Standard language: Netherlandic Dutch is spoken in
the Netherlands and is documented in Collins & Mees (1982), Mees & Collins (1983) and
Gussenhoven (1999), while Belgian Dutch is spoken in the northern part of Belgium (Flanders)
by approximately 6 million speakers. This variety is the same as what is commonly referred to
internationally as ‘Flemish’. However, the term ‘Flemish’ is avoided here since it erroneously
suggests that this language is different from the one spoken in the Netherlands: the lexical
and syntactic differences between the two language varieties are very small. Nevertheless,
there are significant phonetic differences as well as substantial regional variability within the
two speech communities.
Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. Each language is
confined to a specific area of the country. Dutch is spoken in the northern part of Belgium
(Flanders), while in the southern part (Wallonia), French is spoken. In the province of Liege,
in the east of Belgium, there is a small area with German as an official language. Within the
Dutch-speaking area there is a bilingual (French–Dutch) enclave, i.e. Brussels. The present
situation was instituted by law in 1962.

Consonants

Journal of the International Phonetic Association (2005) 35/2

C International Phonetic Association
doi:10.1017/S0025100305002173 Printed in the United Kingdom
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100305002173 Published online by Cambridge University Press
 244 Journal of the International Phonetic Association: Illustrations of the IPA

The sounds between parentheses result from surface phenomena or have a marginal status in
that they occur in loan words only.

p pa:lE palen ‘poles’ S do…SE doosje ‘little box’

b ba:lE balen ‘bales’ Z lo…ZE loge ‘lodge’
t ta:lE talen ‘languages’ x xEil chijl ‘chyle’
d da:lE dalen ‘to go down’ V VEil geil ‘horny’
k ka:lE kale ‘bald person’
/ /a:lE alen ‘eels’ R Ra:t raad ‘advice’
m vlAm vlam ‘flame’ j ja:R9 jaar ‘year’
n vAn van ‘from’ w wa:R9 waar ‘true’
N vAN vang ‘(I) catch’ l la:t laat ‘late’
f fEl fel ‘fierce’
v vEl vel ‘skin’
s se:l ceel ‘warrant’
z ze:l zeel ‘rope’

Plosives
The sound system of Belgian Dutch distinguishes between two series of plosives: a voiceless
series /p/, /t/ and /k/ and a plain voiced series with plosives at a bilabial and alveolar place
of articulation. Phonetically, the language also has a voiceless palatal stop [c] in diminutive
forms of nouns ending in /t/ or /d/ such as [bo:c´] ‘little boat’ and [pa:R9c´] ‘little horse’
and a labiodental stop in words like [OpfAl´] ‘to stand out’ and [Opfu:R´] ‘to perform’. The
glottal stop is confined to word-initial position as a strong attack of vowels. Furthermore,
Dutch also has [g] in words like [zAgduk] ‘handkerchief’ and [dEgbEt] ‘quilt’. These phonetic
realisations, however, originate from processes of assimilation. The voiceless plosives are
unaspirated, while the voiced plosives are fully voiced in word-initial and intervocalic position.
There are no substantial differences between Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch as far as the
plosives are concerned.

Nasals
The Belgian Dutch sound system has nasals at three places of articulation: [m], [n] and [N].
Phonetically, the language also has a labiodental and a palatal nasal. The former is confined
to cases of assimilation where the bilabial nasal is followed by a labiodental fricative such as
in [OµvAl´] ‘to fall over’. The latter occurs in foreign words [lAzANA] ‘lasagna’ and cases of
assimilation where the alveolar nasal is followed by a palatal stop in the diminutive form as
in [lANc´] ‘little country’. The nasal system is the same as in Netherlandic Dutch.

Fricatives
It has been argued that one of the most salient phonetic differences between Belgian Dutch
and Netherlandic Dutch has to do with the voicing distinction in fricatives (Gussenhoven
1999): the Netherlands has a strong tendency to devoice its phonologically voiced fricatives,
while it has been held traditionally that the voicing distinction in fricatives is still very stable
in Belgian Dutch. Recent research on fricative devoicing in Belgian Dutch, however, shows
that 70% of word-initial and 56% of intervocalic fricatives are realised without any trace
of vocal fold vibration (Verhoeven & Hageman, in press). Word-final fricatives are always
voiceless.
A striking difference between Belgian Dutch and Netherlandic Dutch relates to the velar
and uvular place of articulation: Belgian Dutch has a voiced and voiceless velar fricative:
these are absent in the Netherlands. The Netherlands has a voiceless uvular fricative which
does not occur in Belgian Dutch.

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 J. Verhoeven: Belgian Standard Dutch 245

Trills
The phonological system of Belgian Dutch has free variation between an alveolar and uvular
trill. The alveolar trill is most frequent and geographically most widely distributed. The
uvular trill is regionally confined to the cities of Ghent and Brussels and the province of
Limburg, but estimates suggest that it is gaining fast in popularity (Van Reenen 1994). The
alveolar/uvular trill is voiced in all positions, except word-finally as in [do:R9] ‘through’ and
when followed by a voiceless stop in consonant clusters as in [va:R9t] ‘sails’. The phonetic
characteristics of the uvular trill in the province of Limburg were investigated in Verhoeven
(1994). It was found that uvular trills are virtually always realised with a clear transitional
aspect of articulation, i.e. the uvula does actually trill against the back of the tongue. Only
in a very small number of cases the uvular trill was realised phonetically as a voiced uvular
approximant or a voiceless uvular fricative, i.e. without a transitional aspect. This limited
phonetic variability of r-realisation in Belgian Dutch contrasts with the Netherlands where
/r/ is also frequently realised as amongst others a central vowel, a retroflex approximant, an
alveolar tap, an alveolar approximant or a uvular fricative (Van de Velde 1994).
Approximants
Belgian Dutch has two central approximants and one lateral, i.e. /j/ and /w/ vs. /l/. [w] has a
labial-velar articulation rather than labiodental in many accents of Netherlandic Dutch. The
lateral approximant is often slightly velarized in postvocalic positions. The palatal lateral
approximant only occurs as a result of assimilation with following /j/.

Vowels
Belgian Dutch has twelve monophthongs and three diphthongs.

i y u

e o


ε
ɔ
εj
ɑ y ɔu
a

i lip liep ‘ran’ Ej lEj lei ‘slate’

I lIp lip ‘lip’ œy lœy lui ‘lazy’
e… le…s lees ‘(I) read’ Ou lOu lauw ‘tepid’
E lEs les ‘lesson’
A RAp rap ‘quick’
a… Ra…p raap ‘turnip’
O lOt lot ‘fate’
o… lo…t lood ‘lead’
u buk boek ‘book’
Y bYk buk ‘(I)’ bend over’
y… dy…R9 duur ‘expensive’
„… d„…R9 deur ‘door’

The main difference between Belgian Dutch and Netherlandic Dutch has to do with the
pronunciation of the half-close long vowels [e…], [P…] and [o…]. In the Netherlands, these are

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 246 Journal of the International Phonetic Association: Illustrations of the IPA

EFL ATW LIM

2

i
y u
3
φ
o
4 Y
e I
F1

5
ε
a

7
14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6
F2

Figure 1 Average formant values (Bark) for the 12 Dutch monophthongs in five male speakers from the East Flanders (EFL),
Antwerp (ATW) and Limburg (LIM) region.

frequently diphthongized. In Belgian Dutch, however, they are always monophthongs. The
acoustic characteristics of the vowels in Belgian Dutch were investigated in Verhoeven &
Van Bael (2002). This study describes monophthong realisation in three regional varieties of
Belgian Dutch, i.e. in the Limburg area (LIM), the Antwerp area (ATW) and the East-Flanders
area (EFL). Mean formant values of five male speakers in each of these areas are illustrated
in figure 1.
From figure 1, it can be seen that there is substantial regional variability in vowel
realisation. The Antwerp region has very similar average formant values for [i] and [I],
[a] and [A], [y] and [Y]. This may foreshadow the collapse of these distinctions in future
generations. In addition, [e] and [I] have swapped positions as compared to East Flanders and
Limburg. Finally, all the Antwerp back vowels have substantially higher F1 values than the
other varieties.

Prosody
The intonation system of Belgian Dutch is very similar to that of Netherlandic Dutch, i.e.
pitch contours consist of combinations of rising and falling pitch movements between an upper
and lower declination line. The most common pitch configuration consists of a prominence-
lending rise–fall combination in the same syllable with a frequent variant in which the two
prominence-lending movements are positioned on different syllables: they are connected by
a stretch of high declination. Another frequent pitch configuration is a rise associated with
continuation or question intonation. The investigation of the precise differences between the
intonational systems in both language varieties is in its initial stages.
A prosodic characteristic which has recently been investigated in detail is speech rate
(Verhoeven, De Pauw & Kloots 2004), calculated for 80 speakers in Belgian Dutch. In this
study, articulation rate amounted to 4.22 syllables per second (syll/sec) and speaking rate was
3.98 syll/sec. The value for speaking rate included silent and filled pauses, whereas silent
pauses were excluded from the measure for articulation rate. These rates were significantly

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 J. Verhoeven: Belgian Standard Dutch 247

lower than those established for Netherlandic Dutch, where articulation rate amounts to 5.04
syll/sec and speaking rate to 4.23 syll/sec.

Transcriptions
The speaker is a highly educated 45-year-old male who speaks Belgian Dutch with a very
slight regional Limburg accent. The symbol || marks the end of an utterance and the symbol |
marks the end of an intonational phrase.
Orthographic
De noordenwind en de zon waren ruzie aan het maken over wie het sterkste was toen er een
reiziger voorbij kwam met een warme jas aan. Ze spraken af dat degene die erin zou slagen
om de reiziger zijn jas te doen uittrekken de sterkste was. De noordenwind blies zo hard hij
kon, maar hoe harder hij blies hoe warmer de reiziger zich induffelde. Uiteindelijk gaf hij
zijn poging op. Dan begon de zon hard te schijnen en de reiziger deed onmiddellijk zijn jas
uit. De noordenwind moest toegeven dat de zon het sterkste was.
Broad phonetic
d´ no:Rd´wInts /En d´ zOn | wa:R´ Ryzi a:n ´t ma:k´ | /o:v´r wi H´t stERkst´ wAs |
tun ´R ´n REizIV´R vo:RbEi kwAm mEt ´n wARm´ jAza:n || z´ spra:k´n /Af |
dAt d´Ve:n´ di /´RIn zOu sla:V´ /Om d´ REizIV´R zEin jAs t´ dun /{ytrEk´ | d´
stERkst´ wAs || d´ noRd´wInts blis so: HARt HEI kOn | ma:R Hu HARd´R hEI blis |
hu wARm´R d´ REizIV´R zIx IndYf´ld´ || /{ytEind´l´k gAf hEI zEin po:VIN /Op
|| dAn b´VOn d´ zOn HARt t´ sxEin´ | /En d´ REizIV´R de:t OmId´l´k sEin jAz{yt
|| d´ no:Rd´wInts must tuVe:v´ | dAt´ zOn h´t stERkst´ wAs.

References
COLLINS, B. & MEES, I. (1982). A phonetic description of the consonant system of Standard Dutch. Journal
of the International Phonetic Association 12, 2–12.
GUSSENHOVEN, C. (1999). Illustrations of the IPA: Dutch. In Handbook of the International Phonetic
Association, 74–77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
MEES, I. & COLLINS, B. (1983). A phonetic description of the vowel system of Standard Dutch. Journal
of the International Phonetic Association 13, 74–77.
VAN DE VELDE, H. (1994). 60 jaar (r)evolutie in het Standaard Nederlands. Taal en Tongval 7, 22–42.
VAN REENEN, P. (1994). Driemaal /r/ in de Nederlandse dialecten. Taal en Tongval 7, 289–333.
VERHOEVEN, J. (1994). Fonetische Eigenschappen van enkele regionaal bepaalde varianten van huig-r.
Taal en Tongval 7, 9–21.
VERHOEVEN, J. & VAN BAEL, C. (2002). Akoestische kenmerken van de Nederlandse klinkers in drie
Vlaamse regio’s. Taal en Tongval 54, 1–23.
VERHOEVEN, J., DE PAUW, G. & KLOOTS, H. (2004). Speech rate and regional accent: a comparison of
Dutch in Belgium and the Netherlands. Language and Speech 47, 297–308.
VERHOEVEN, J. & HAGEMAN, G. (in press). De verstemlozing van fricatieven in Vlaanderen. Nederlandse
Taalkunde.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100305002173 Published online by Cambridge University Press